Kimihiro Watanuki
Kimihiro Watanuki (君尋四月一日, Watanuki Kimihiro) is a fictional character in the Clamp manga, and anime, xxxHolic. The manga is currently ongoing and the anime series started 6 April 2006. He is almost always referred to by his last name. Watanuki means "april 1st " in kanji and it's a reference to the old tradition of removing the kimono to avoid the children to suffer diseases. xxxHOLiC manga 167 Kimihiro means prophet. Appearance Watanuki has short black hair, and dark blue eyes at the beginning of the series. About half way through both the anime and manga however he loses the sight in his right eye to a spider's grudge curse, and as a result, his iris turns a dull gray color. After failing to retrieve the sight, he recieves half of Domeki's right eye's sight, which causes his right eye to turn a dark green with a brownish tint (Anime), or Gold Brown (Manga). For the majority of the series, he wears an ordinary pair of glasses, however at one point he loses them, and replaces them with a pair that resembles, or may possible be, the pair that Clow Reed wore. Fei Wong Reed once mentioned he resembles a young Clow Reed. Gallery of Kimihiro Watanuki File:4385-watanuki_large.jpg File:KimihiroWatanuki.jpg File:Imageswa.jpg File:4jxm5l.jpg Personality Watanuki is known for a having both a volatile and caring nature to him. Depending upon the person he talks to, his emotions tend to be overly exaggerated. With Himawari he throws himself into the air accompanied by hearts and a "Himawari-chaaaaan!!" squeal. With Domeki, he almost always expresses irritation with various facial expressions, screaming, and arm motions that reminds Himawari of an angry cat. With the exception of these two and Yūko, Watanuki tends to address everyone around him with formality and kindness. Story Watanuki lives alone because his parents died, but harder than this conditions is the fact that his everyday life is plagued with spirits that only he can see. Apparently this was inherited- it is noted that his blood smells good to spirts. One common day, Watanuki's chased by a monster, falls and holds from a fence, surprisingly the monster is repeled right away. When rising the view, he sees a strange house. Two kids appear from the main door and welcome him. He insists that he entered by accident, but a voice replies that it was inevitable that he arrived to this place- it is fate. The voice belongs to Yuko Ichihara and she informs him that the store grants wishes in exchange of a price. Yūko asks Watanuki for a wish, which is to stop seeing spirits. She agrees in exchange for him working as a helper in the shop until he accumulates this price. This is the beginning of Watanuki's part time job, in which there is many meets that coincide, but as Yuko says there's no coincidence, only hitsuzen (the inevitable). Watanuki meets people who help him to change and understand the world from Yuko's perspective, he also matures. Watanuki's life changes abruptly once he starts working for Yūko, he does not only cook and clean, but he's found making strange jobs and learning about the occult. He learns the power of divination, not noticing that this is the beginning of a transformation in himself. Since one of his biggest problems is his low self esteem, he'd gladly hurt himself if that helped someone else. It's suspected that this is why Yūko asked him to work in the shop – he had nothing important enough to him to pay this wish with. This causes difficulties when others decide to help him despite risking themselves. Watanuki cannot accept someone sacrificing for him. One case: he exposes to great danger when spending time with the spirit of a woman who lost her child when she was young. He does so that the woman doesn't experience the same loneliness he feels. He continues to see her despite falling ill (he even coughs blood). In the seventh volume a curse that should fall into Watanuki because of a spider which nest was destroyed by him, is transfered to Dōmeki. Since to release him of the net, Dōmeki destroyed the net, the curse of the spider evites him to open his eye. For this curse to be transfered, Watanuki had to suffer "worse" so he wishes for it, losing an eye to Dōmeki's anger. After this there is a great change in how Dōmeki treats Watanuki. Later on, Watanuki finds out that the Zashiki Warashi has been captured by the "Spider Queen" in an attempt to retrieve his right eye. Despite Yūko's warning about the risks of going there, he decides to rescue the girl. When he is captured and faces the Spider Queen, he offers the left eye and his body in exchange of releasing her. She rejects this offer, she wouldn't take something so easily; says to him that he's "throwing himself away as if nothing" something that Zashiki Warashi and the Kudakitsune are trying to retrieve so badly. This is a valuable lesson of self- value that he learns. xxxHolic Rou In ''Holic Rou ''he becomes the owner of the shop after Yuko's death, after his parents cease to exist, he chooses to stay there until he finds a way to see Yuko again (as, by this time, his status as an anomaly in space-time is made greater, as is Syaoran's). Watanuki continues to grant wishes in the shop, although oten taking too little or too much as prices. He gets along better with Doumeki as now he acts like someone completely different and quite mature, he doesn't hide his emotions and stops making movements and weird expressions. He tries not to get hurt when granting wishes, since everyone wants him to continue existing without hurting his heart or body. It seems that the transformation has completed and his personality suffers a great change. His magic is finally released, according to the Spider Queen he might no longer be human. Four years after, he meets Syaoran again (although it seems like 2 years to Syaoran). His coming inspired him to make a new signature, with a bird, taking this as a price he sends him and his group back to Clow Country so he can see Sakura again. xxxHolic Rou One-Shot Ten years after (this still has to happen in the manga) Watanuki, Domeki and Kohane are engaged in a dangerous task involving an Izuna user and the relics of a family. Then the Izuna's master speak directly to him asking for help and the price will be given through her lips. Once the task is met, Doumeki gives him the tape rewinding it again and again to hear: "I'm back, Watanuki-kun" to which he responds "Welcome back, Yuko-san" XxxHOLIC♦Rou OAD Relationships Yuko Ichihara Watanuki's relationship with Yuko is a deep,platonic one. The relationship evolves throughout the anime /manga. At the beginning of the manga, Watanuki only respected Yuko because she was older and wiser than Watanuki but he didn't genuinely care for her and often thought of her as treacherous and selfish. As the story progressed, Watanuki started caring for Yuko's well being and helped heer with customers. At this time Watanuki also became more tolerant of Yuko and did not yell at her as much. By the end of xxxHolic, Yuko and Watanuki shared a deep and understanding bond as friends and Yuko even acted as Watanuki's caretaker. At this point, Watanuki confided with Yuko many of his problems and even talked to Yuko about serious and more complicated topics that could not have been discussed before due to Watanuki's immaturity. Yuko and Watanuki also show natural signs of platonic love for one another, for example, when Watanuki and Yuko found each other in their dreams and Watanuki told her that he would grant any one of her wish no matter what it was as long as it made her happy. They find each other in their dreams several other times, usually being in the shop's yard. In one of these dreams, Yuko asks Watanuki if he's happy with being and working at the shop and Watanuki says that he is, to which Yuko says that if the shop is "reason enough" for Watanuki to stay, she's happy and Watanuki takes and holds Yuko's hand that was touching his face. Watanuki's caring feelings for Yuko appear once again when Yuko is dying and Watanuki tells Yuko that he will stay in the shop waiting for her and if wishes can come true just by wishing them and wanting them enough, he wishes to meet her again no matter how long it takes her to come back. Four years after Yuko's death, Watanuki meets Haruka Domeki in one of his dreams and as they are talking, Haruka points out that Watanuki is wearing his glasses even though he does not need them. Watanuki then tells him that he forgets to take them off sometimes and then he starts to tell Haruka that before Yuko died, when all Yuko's past customers said that they didn't remember Yuko, Watanuki was afraid and he said that it was the most frightening thing that he had ever experienced. He explained that he was afraid that he might forget Yuko also and so he had decided to carry on her things (her pipe, her shop etc.) and says "I will carry them on so that I don't forget Yuko san. And even if I do forget , I'll come close to remembering." In Chapter 207 (xxxHolic RO), Watanuki told a customer the meaning of "desire." He said it meant that you want to obtain something so much that you don't care what lengths you are willing to go to or even who you might hurt in the process. Watanuki later reveals that his wish to see Yuko has also turned into a desire. Clow Reed Watanuki and Clow have never met but Watanuki and Clow resemble each other very much and are often being compared to each other by Yuko, Mokona and Fei Wong Reed. It is also revealed that Watanuki is a descendant of Clow's. Chibi Kitsune Watanuki and Chibi are good friends. Watanuki met him for the first time at his and his father's oden stand that cannot usually be seen by humans. The two form a friendly bond but do not see each other often since they live in two different worlds. Once, When Watanuki went to the Monster Procession, all the monsters realised that Watanuki and Domeki were humans and chased them, trying to kill them when Chibi Kitsune interfiered and told them all what a good person Watanuki was until the monsters spared him. Later on, to express his thanks, Watanuki send Chibi a dream (in a baloon) from the dream collector (he had traded one of his dreams for five of the dream collector's dreams). Kitsune He's Chibi Kitsune's father and he's very kind to Watanuki. Trivia *He has already met Yuuko before their meeting in xxxholic Episode 1. *Mokona likes to call him 'shigatsu tsuitachi' which also means April 1/April Fool. *His signature is a bird. It looks like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle logo and it is given by Syaoran, as seen in xxxholic special chapter. *Watanuki Kimihiro is not his true name. It is changed by his true parents so Fei Wong won't be able to recover and use him to his evil purposes. *In Horitsuba Gakuen, his traits are still the same as he does in xxxholic. He still hates Doumeki and likes Himawari, gets along with Syaoran, Syaoron and Sakura. His dishes is usually praised by their Home Economist teacher, Yuui. Theories Some theories also suggest that Watanuki is the reincarnation of Clow Reed both in looks and his magical abilities in Ch.204(xXxHoLic). References Category:Characters Category:xxxHolic Characters Category:Article stubs